Iylene Weiss; Activist Worked to Save Ballona Lagoon

Iylene Weiss, 71, Westside environmentalist who worked to save Ballona Lagoon. Weiss, who once ran unsuccessfully for the state Assembly, founded the Ballona Lagoon Marine Preserve and headed a 10-year fight to restore the 16-acre area in Venice. Even during her final illness, she visited the lagoon to inspect progress on the project begun in February to dredge the channel and plant native greenery along the banks. Ballona Lagoon was the last of many environmental causes to benefit from her help. “Tell me, ‘No, it can’t be done,’ and that really gets me going,” she recently said in describing her willingness to take on City Hall. Weiss was also active in the Volunteers for the Los Angeles Oceanic Society, which sponsored a cleanup of Venice’s Grand Canal, and in the Los Angeles chapter of the League of Conservation Voters. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., she moved to Los Angeles with her husband and five sons 40 years ago. On Sunday in Venice of cancer.